Deadly Greetings Part 6

"Greg asked me out to dinner tomorrow night."

Lillian frowned. "No wonder he bolted away so quickly. Jennifer, you can't keep saying no to him forever."

"Evidently not," I admitted. "I just agreed to go out with him again."

Lillian's face lit up. "Why how delightful. I'm so pleased." Then she studied my face. "Aren't you?"

"I'm not sure yet. Ask me in a few days."

Lillian hugged me. "You'll have a delightful time, I'm sure of it."

"That's what I'm afraid of," I said, wondering what I'd gotten myself into this time.

"Well, if you'll excuse me, dear, I need to go," Lillian said.

"You didn't change your mind about staying in, did you? Please don't tell me you're going out again," I said, not able to believe that my aunt had more energy than I did.

"Child, I'm driving straight home, where I plan to enjoy a hot bath, then go straight to sleep. If you need me, don't call, as I'll have the ringer turned off. We can brainstorm about Maggie's demise tomorrow."

"Good night," I said as I locked the front door and walked to my car. I'd been ready to leave the shop, and I was exhausted myself, though I hadn't done anything exceptional all day. The thought of going back to my new place wasn't as appealing as it should have been, and if it hadn't been for Oggie and Nash, I probably would have delayed returning even longer, but my roommates hadn't asked to move, and I wasn't going to abandon them just because I was starting to get a little jittery about my new domicile. I picked up a pizza on the way home, an extra large that would probably end up being breakfast, too. I didn't care if it wasn't the best dietary choice. That was one of the joys of living alone; I didn't have to worry about what anyone else thought about what I did or didn't eat.

The commute to my new home was a lot quicker than to my old place, even with the stop for pizza, so I was there before I wanted to be. I walked upstairs and was trying to fit my key in the lock while balancing the pizza when I heard someone tear up the steps behind me.

When I turned, I nearly dropped the pizza. It was Deputy Wayne Davidson, my brother's employee and my own worst nightmare.

"Go away, Wayne," I said as I fumbled with the key. Why wouldn't it go in the lock, especially when I was in such a hurry?

"Now Jennifer, is that any way to act?" I could smell his breath, and it didn't take a sobriety test to tell me he was drunk.

"Go home and sober up," I snapped. Why wasn't the blasted key working?

"Why can't you be friendlier to me? You like me; I know you do."

He was close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him now. I was going to have to throw the pizza in his face and run downstairs, since I couldn't get my key to work.

"Jennifer, you're late," another voice said from below. There was no way there was room for three of us on that tiny landing, but I didn't care. My new neighbor Barrett was climbing the steps at a good clip. "We're eating in my apartment tonight; did you forget?"

Wayne said, "Sorry, she's already got plans, bub."

"You're right, and they're with me." He reached past Wayne, plucked the pizza out of my hands and said, "We don't want this to get cold. I've got the wine all ready, and I picked up a movie on the way home."

As I slid past Wayne, Barrett said, "Sorry, my friend, but there's just enough for two. Have a good evening."

I followed Barrett into his apartment, waiting for Wayne to protest, but when I glanced back as the door was closing, I saw him frowning at us but apparently unable to come up with a reason to stop us. With the door locked, I said, "Barrett, you're a life-saver. How did you know I needed help?"

My new building mate shrugged. "He wasn't exactly keeping his voice down, and in all honesty, I was just going out to grab a bite myself when I heard him."

"Your timing couldn't have been better. After I make a quick telephone call, you're more than welcome to share my pizza."

He laughed. "Jennifer, you're certainly under no obligation to share your food with me. I didn't do all that much."

He'd done more than he'd ever know. "Considering the fact that I was about ready to slam the box into his face and run, I disagree. What do you say?"

"I'd be delighted," he said. "Let me open a bottle of wine and we'll eat."

"What, no movie?" I asked, joking.

"I have a healthy selection of DVDs to choose from. I'm sure we can find something we both like."

I took my jacket off, then said, "You've got a deal. Let me call my brother and then we can eat."

He looked at me carefully. "Do you have to get permission before dating strange men? He's awfully protective of you, isn't he?"

I shook my head. "He's that, all right, but he's also the sheriff, and that man outside my door is one of his deputies."

Barrett just nodded, then said, "I'll get the wine."

I dialed Bradford's cell phone and he picked up on he third ring. "Shane here."

"Bradford, Wayne Davidson just accosted me on my doorstep, and he's been drinking again. He was close enough for me to smell it on his breath."

My brother isn't p.r.o.ne to foul language, but he ripped a few choice words off at that news. "I'll take are of it. Are you okay?"

"One of my neighbors stepped in before I had to defend myself, but just barely. He's a real menace. Bradford, you can't keep covering for him."

There was a long pause, then my brother said, "Okay, you're right. I've had a blind spot about him for a while. We had a talk today, and I told him if he came within a half mile of you, I was going to fire him."

"So are you?" I asked. "Or do I have to go over our head and make a formal complaint to the state police?"

"He's gone, Jennifer, as soon as I can find him. You might not want to go back to your apartment just yet. Why don't you wait there and I'll send Jim over?"

Barrett glanced over at me, and I held up one finger. "That's not necessary. I'm having pizza with my new neighbor. Find him before he hurts someone, Bradford."

"I will," he said, then hung up.

Barrett asked, "Is everything all right?"

"It will be, thanks. Are you ready to eat?"

"Absolutely," he said. As Barrett led me into his dining area, I got my first good look at his apartment. It was furnished beautifully, with elegant Queen Anne furniture and lush rugs throughout. The art on the walls was magnificent as well. I'd felt that my apartment was well furnished, but compared to his place, it suddenly felt like the attic it was.

"How much of this is your taste, and how much of it is the owner's?" I asked a little more abruptly than I probably should have as we ate.

"It's more Mrs. Thomas's than it is mine. To be honest with you, I prefer your apartment. I'm more into simple lines than all this ornamentation."

"So you've been to my place?" I asked as I served us both more pizza.

He topped off our winegla.s.ses, then said, "Frances and I were friends, not just neighbors."

So he'd known the former tenant. "What was she like, or is it too painful to talk about?"

Barrett took a sip of wine, then said, "She was comfortable, you know? Like a pair of slippers you've worn for years, or a ratty old bathrobe. No, that's not fair to her. You must think I'm awful speaking of the dead so callously."

I felt myself gazing into his eyes. "Barrett, I think that's a wonderful way to describe a friend. I just lost one myself, and I'm having a hard time with it."

He stared at me a moment, then said, "Did you know Maggie Blake too?"

I nearly dropped my winegla.s.s. "She was in my card-crafting club at Custom Card Creations."

He nodded. "So you're a card maker too?"

"It's my shop," I said. "But I never realized Maggie knew Frances."

"Oh yes. They were great friends," he said, "And I got to know her in pa.s.sing. Jennifer, take care of yourself, would you promise me that? I don't have many people I like left in this world, and I'm hoping we can get closer as time goes on."

I suddenly realized that there was more to his body language and the tone of his voice than the words coming out of his mouth. Was he actually making a pa.s.s at me over pizza? And more importantly, how did I feel about it? I'd agreed to have dinner with Greg tomorrow night, but was that really going anywhere again?

Barrett leaned in toward me, and I could swear he was going to try to kiss me. It normally took me a lot longer to warm up to a man, but there was something it about him, some kind of charm, that held me in place.

At the last second I pulled back, and all I could manage was to smile as cryptically as I could. I was struggling to come up with something to say when there was a pounding on his front door. Was it Bradford coming to check on me, or had Wayne decided to invite himself to dinner anyway?

Either way, I didn't want Barrett to answer the door.

Chapter 6.

I heard a woman's voice call out, "Barrett, I know you're in there. I saw your car. Let me in. We need to talk."

He looked at me like someone had just slapped him. Grimly, he said, "We can try to ignore her, but I know from experience that Penny's not going away. It's better if I just deal with her right now."

"Go ahead and talk to her," I said. "It's fine with me.

Barrett clamped his jaw so tightly that for a moment I was afraid he was going to break a tooth; then he opened the door. Standing there was a pet.i.te blonde in her mid-twenties. If she hadn't been scowling so hard, I was willing to bet she'd have been one of the prettiest women I'd ever seen. She was exactly the type of woman who had always intimidated me. I'm brunette, tall and a little overweight, and while I'm not unattractive, no one had ever told me I was beautiful, at least not believably enough for me.

She was ready to unload on Barrett when she saw me standing just behind him. "Who's this? Don't tell me you've replaced me already."

"Penny, this is Jennifer. She just moved into Frances's apartment."

The girl frowned. "It didn't take you long to move in on this one, did it?" She turned to me and chilled my blood with her glare. "Don't waste your time. You don't have a chance with him."

Barrett snapped, "Penny, that's enough. Why are you here?"

"You're going to talk to me, and I'm not leaving until you do."

Barrett barely glanced at me as he told her, "I've got company."

"She can stay if she wants to," Penny said as she brushed past us both and came in uninvited. "In fact, she probably should. It will give her some idea of what kind of man she's dealing with."

Barrett turned to me and said, "Jennifer, I'm sorry about this."

As I slipped out the door, I said, "No, that's fine. We were finished here anyway. Good night."

He whispered, "I'll come up later and explain."

"It's really not necessary. Listen, I've had a long day." I hurried up the stairs to my apartment, for the moment not caring if Wayne was still lurking around or not. As I tried my key in the lock, I realized why I hadn't been able to get in when Wayne had been there. In my rush to get inside, I'd been trying to use the key to the shop instead. I took a deep breath, found the right key on my ring and opened my apartment door. Once I was inside, I threw the deadbolt in place, happy that Bradford had arranged to have my lock changed. I'd actually found myself intrigued by Barrett's pale green eyes and his dark good looks. Maybe I should make Penny a thank-you card for getting there before I could make a fool of myself. If he'd tried just a little harder, it was difficult to say what might have happened.

I turned on a light and finally looked around the apartment. It appeared that someone had done his level best to wreck the place. If I hadn't just had the locks changed, I would have sworn that I'd had a visitor.

Then I found both the cats curled up on my pillow, sound asleep, no doubt from their energetic day. "Time to get up," I said, but neither one of them budged. I knew the wrecked apartment was their sincerest form of protest over our relocation, and I decided that they'd been at least partially justified in their display of disapproval. There wasn't anything else I could do, so I started cleaning up after my insane roommates.

After an hour, I had most of it straightened up and just about everything put away except my carton of books. Oddly enough, there weren't any bookshelves in the apartment. I knew s.p.a.ce was at a premium in my would-be loft, but that was going to have to be corrected immediately. I don't just love to read books-though I do desperately-but I also like to see them out in the open with their spines reminding me of stories I treasured. I'd pick up a few boards and some bricks tomorrow to make a temporary bookshelf until I could manage something better. I'd done it in college, and it didn't make a bad-looking display, though I doubted it would fit in with the furniture I had. That was too bad. It was my apartment now, and just because Frances hadn't enjoyed reading didn't mean that I was going to shove my books back into a box and jam them all under my bed. It was barely past ten when I opened two cans of food for Oggie and Nash. The rascals came running at the sound of the opener, and I chatted with them as they ate. It was too early for bed but too late to do much of anything else. I grabbed one of my favorite books out of the box-a well-read copy of The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie-and started to read, but it couldn't hold my attention. After ten minutes, I decided to give up the battle and go to bed.

There was someone waiting for me the next morning when I opened the shop. I was surprised to find Hilda Bunting there, my inaugural member of the Crafty Cut-Ups Club, and the woman responsible for recruiting most of the rest of our group. I started to offer her a hug, and Hilda, in her usual stern manner, stepped back and said, "Yes, I know, it's a terrible thing. Jennifer, we need to talk."

"Of course," I said as I unlocked the front door.

She watched me go from lock to lock with a curious expression on her face. "Security is important to you, isn't it?"

I shrugged. "What can I say? My brother's the sheriff, and he believes in preventative measures."

Hilda smiled slightly. "Are there attack dogs roaming around inside as well?"

I laughed. "No, but I have a couple of insane cats back at my apartment. I'd bring them with me, but they both love to shred paper, and I don't have to tell you what a disaster that would be." I locked the door back behind us and put my things down on the crafting table in the window.

"Then perhaps it's better you leave them right where they are."

It was pretty obvious she had something she wanted to say, but Hilda was having a tough time getting it out, something that was completely out of character for her. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. "You mentioned there was something you wanted to talk about."

Instead of speaking, she nodded and handed me an envelope. I didn't have to look at the return address to see who it was from. It appeared that Maggie had chosen to speak to someone else beyond the grave besides me.

I pulled the card out and saw a clock on the front with its lightning-bolt hands set to seven thirty. In jagged letters, the message read, "You Are Cordially Invited to My Wake." Inside, Maggie had written,

Hilda, don't cancel the next meeting for the Crafty Cut-Ups Club. Instead, do it in my memory.

Love, Maggie.